A Better Man - Book One
G. Younger
A Better Man: Book One
Advanced Reader Copy Edition Version 2.0: July 29, 2020
Copyright ©2020 G. Younger
ISBN-13: 978-0-9988371-3-0
Author: Greg Younger
Developmental Editors: XofDallas and Bud Ugly
Line / Copy Editors: Bud Ugly, TheMikeBomb, Zom, and Old Rotorhead
Last One Through: Bud Ugly
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This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters depicted in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Table of Contents:
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Notes from the Author
◊◊◊
Prologue
Lexi
“We want to welcome Lexi Andon, David A. Dawson’s personal assistant. Unfortunately, Mr. Dawson wasn’t able to be here today, so we got the next best thing,” Cassie Krieger of In The Know announced to her TV audience.
Lexi let a touch of irritation touch her eyes at the backhanded slam Cassie had just given her. Many people underestimated Lexi because she was young and good looking. In Hollywood, it was easy to make that mistake because everywhere you turned, there were beautiful people.
Reflecting on it, Lexi realized most people sometimes forgot that Lexi’s father was Paul Andon, an executive for one of the largest film companies in the world. They’d been responsible for the Star Academy movie franchise that David was currently starring in. Lexi wasn’t a typical Hollywood kid who was off in their own world; she’d paid attention to what her father did—but hardly anyone knew that about her.
As soon as she’d graduated high school, Lexi had decided she didn’t want to use her father’s influence to make her career. Instead, she’d set her eyes on one of the most promising young actors to hit Hollywood in recent years, namely David A. Dawson. The plan was to leverage that into bigger and better opportunities.
“David sends his regrets. He is currently in New Zealand, wrapping up the filming of his most recent Star Academy movie,” Lexi answered with her best smile.
“It sounds like David has been busy.”
“Yes, besides wrapping the last two Star Academy movies, he finished filming his part in the upcoming James Bond movie, Devil May Care. In that one, he plays James’s son, Ian Bond,” Lexi related.
“I think we have a clip,” Cassie said.
“Yes. This is the first time anything has been released to the public. In this scene, Ian comes upon a terrorist attack,” Lexi said to set up the scene for the audience.
The video switched to the clip. When it started, Lexi couldn’t help admiring David. There was a reason he’d been recently named one of the sexiest up-and-coming actors in Hollywood. He’d gotten his start modeling when he was in high school. He was six-four and had a body that made women swoon.
One of her favorite pastimes was to sit back and watch women either check him out or fall all over themselves trying to get his attention. Lexi was amazed that he took it all in stride and, for the most part, ignored it. He was too focused to be distracted. It took quite a lot for someone to catch his attention.
What amazed Lexi even more was that he was never rude or dismissive. He always had time for people, but he was firm about his refusals. It was a hard act to pull off and not have women feel rejected or mad when David didn’t succumb to their advances. He had a flair and quiet authority that somehow made it okay.
The scene began with David in running clothes, jogging in London. There was the sound of an explosion, which prompted David to jump into action. What he found was chaos on the iconic Tower bridge over the River Thames. You could see a double-decker bus in flames and traffic beginning to pile up.
There was a second explosion that rocked the bridge. People began to jump out of their cars and run away from the carnage. David fought his way through the utter chaos.
There was a cutaway scene that showed another bomb. When the camera switched back to David, he spotted it.
“Run!” he screamed as the bomb detonated to end the scene.
“Oh, my. That looks exciting,” Cassie observed and then turned back to her guest.
“It does have a lot of action in it, as you would expect with a James Bond film.”
Cassie smiled and then got a serious look. Lexi knew what was coming next and prepared herself not to react if she was asked something outrageous. David’s main PR guy, Frank Ingram, had given her a set of talking points to help her navigate an interview like this.
“Tell me what happened in India. I understand that David refused to film there,” Cassie said, digging for dirt.
Lexi internally sighed in relief; she’d been prepped for this question. She sent a silent word of thanks to Frank and his team. She paused a moment to show thoughtful contemplation, another trick Frank had taught her. It kept her from rushing her answer. Frank had pointed out that pacing was necessary when building trust with your audience. He said it showed that she was confident.
“They’d planned to film in northern India. I understand it is beautiful and would have made an excellent backdrop for the film. David was first concerned when he did his homework on the region. He’d run across an article that discussed births in the area. During one time period, there were 216 children born in several surrounding villages. Not a single one was a girl.
“The question was, was this a fluke occurrence or something more sinister? David asked me to look into it,” Lexi said.
“What did you find?” Cassie asked as she leaned forward in interest.
It was one thing to watch someone like David give an interview and know what he was doing, and another for her to do it. Lexi found that being the one on stage was harder than she realized. She had to tell a story, one that was engaging and held the audience’s interest.
“Indian baby girls are being aborted simply because of their gender. For families living in poverty, boys are deemed to be more desirable since they are considered the main breadwinners. Families chose to simply never have a girl because she is considered a burden,” Lexi explained.
Cassie gave her a shocked look. Living where they did, it was easy to forget the reality of real poverty. What seemed deplorable for us could make perfect sense if you went to bed hungry at night. Frank had told her it was okay to show outrage, but not to go over the top with it.
“Isn’t that illegal?” Cassie asked.
“India made it illegal in 1994, but the practice still persists.”
“What was the other concern for not filming in India?”
Lexi looked at the camera and grimaced. This was the part that genuinely disturbed her. In her mind, she could come up with no justification for what happened.
“There was an incident. I understand that there are Muslim nomadic tribes in the area where we planned to film. The local population is Hindu, and there are religious tensions,” Lexi said to set the stage.
“What happened?” Cassie prodded when Lexi paused.
“An eight-year-old girl left her camp to tend the horses, and she went missing. Her body was found a week later. It was discovered that she was taken to a small Hindu temple, drugged, raped for five days by a group of men, and then killed with a rock.
“When David heard about it, he told Chubby Feldman, the director. Chubby looked into it and agreed that they would have to find another location to film. Neither the studio nor David wanted to have that taint the movie. I was glad they made the right decision,” Lexi said with conviction.
“That’s terrible,” Cassie admitted and then switched gears. “David is one of the most eligible bachelors in Hollywood, yet we haven’t heard a peep about a love interest.”
Lexi laughed because she was amazed. She’d just described a horrific event, but Cassie showed no interest in digging deeper. Frank had a term for it: ‘NIMBY’ or ‘Not In My Back Yard.’ If it didn’t affect someone directly, they could just brush it off and ignore it.
Cassie had just shown Lexi that she wasn’t a serious journalist. But that should be expected on a show like In The Know. They were geared toward reporting the latest starlet exposing herself as she got out of a car, or a pop star getting drunk and making an ass of him or herself. So, switching to David’s love life fit that storyline better.
The real reason David hadn’t been linked with other actresses on set was that Lexi had hooked up with him. She’d made it clear that they were both young, good looking, and had needs. It was understood that was all it was, just a hookup.
It wasn’t as if others hadn’t offered David similar opportunities. Both his publicist and agent had told him that if he wanted to maintain his All-American Boy image, he shouldn’t be seen acting like a typical Hollywood Bad Boy. It was bad enough that he’d had five children before graduating high school.
Granted, one was adopted, but the optics were still far from ideal.
On a football recruiting trip, he’d met a young lady at the campus check-in. He’d asked her to show him around campus and go to dinner with him. David, and a few of his other campers, went out as a group. They were accompanied by some of the sorority sisters of the girl in question.
It was all pretty innocent until the second night when David had been invited to fulfill a fantasy one of the sorority girls had. That night he’d spent time with both the girl he’d asked out the day before and her sorority sister. One of them ended up having twin boys and the other a little girl. They’d held off telling David about the children until after they’d been born.
In the meantime, he’d gotten a classmate pregnant, and she’d had a little boy.
Being who David was, he hadn’t shirked his responsibilities. He had a healthy family support system, and his parents had stepped in to help with the raising of the children.
The last child was that of a friend who found herself in a tough predicament. She and David had actually dated for a while. She’d broken up with him and taken up with another guy who’d then gotten her pregnant right as they were ready to go off to college. The father had actually signed away his parental rights to his son, not wanting anything to do with having a baby at such a young age.
David and his family had opened their doors and let her and her son move in with them. They’d given her a job as a childcare helper, which allowed her to take college classes. David had always treated her son as one of his own and made it official last spring.
Now he had all his children under one roof in his new home in Malibu.
“The poor guy’s schedule has been bananas. Since the beginning of May, he filmed his James Bond movie, and then in August, he was off to New Zealand and Australia to film the next two Star Academy films. Because of the compressed schedules for filming, many days, he’s been on set upwards of eighteen or more hours a day. I challenge anyone to find time for a love life when that is happening,” Lexi said to deflect the question.
“Why is his schedule so compressed?”
When David had agreed to film the movies, he’d bypassed his first semester of college. A deal-breaker would have been to miss the second semester.
“He’ll enroll at the University of Oklahoma for the spring semester in just a few weeks.”
“Does he still plan to play football?” Cassie asked.
“That and baseball.”
David had been one of the top recruits for both sports coming out of high school.
“Will he continue to act while in school?” Cassie dug.
Lexi had to admit that Cassie had finally asked a good question.
“He did get a waiver from the NCAA that would allow him to act while he’s in college, but for now, he will focus on getting his degree and playing ball in college. David wants to be a normal student-athlete,” Lexi answered.
The NCAA waiver had been touch-and-go. The NCAA and its member institutions wanted to control the image rights of their student-athletes. David, with the help of his legal team, had come to an agreement with the NCAA powers-that-be. His being a model and actor had been a sticking point for his eligibility.
The NCAA has specific rules that preclude such activities. Their contention was that student-athletes gain the fame that makes them marketable from their athletic abilities. The schools provide training and opportunity, so they should reap the benefit. David had garnered his marketability before entering college, which the NCAA recognized, and they had finally provided him with a waiver.
Then there was a fly in the ointment. A shoe company and university had approached David and two of his teammates with money if they would go to the suggested school. David reported the whole scheme, which turned into a mess.
The NCAA investigator, Stewart Chadwick, had wanted David to conduct further meetings with the bad actors, to the point of committing to the school, to help the NCAA get the goods on them. Unlike the FBI, the NCAA didn’t have the same investigative powers where they could compel people to talk. The investigator was trying to do an end-around, to the point of seriously jeopardizing David’s sports career.
‘Fat chance of that,’ Lexi thought with smug satisfaction. David had refused.
The investigator tried to coerce David to force his cooperation with the threat that the investigator would pull David’s eligibility and waiver if David didn’t help them. David called his bluff and found himself ineligible for a while.
What the NCAA didn’t know was that David had also talked to the FBI. They were in the process of building cases against various shoe companies for offering money to high school athletes to attend schools they sponsored. However, no one but the FBI knew it at the time. It turned out that the FBI was more interested in the basketball side of recruiting, so they’d shelved David’s case.
David and his legal team had arranged a meeting with the NCAA to work out his issues. The meeting was hijacked by the FBI, and the NCAA was forced to back off. The FBI didn’t want it getting out that they were investigating shoe companies. They’d suggested that the NCAA might want to reinstate David’s eligibility. The NCAA approved his eligibility but had slow-walked his waiver that would allow him his image rights.
While he was filming in New Zealand, the story broke that the FBI had made their move on the shoe companies. The NCAA, fearing that David would talk about them knowing about the investigation and doing nothing, had finally come to their senses. They’d given him the waivers he needed to either act or, more importantly, promote his films. There was a lot of language in the agreements indicating that the waivers were an exception, due to his unique history.
‘David became famous as a model and an actor long before he became famous as a football player,’ Lexi mused.
The NCAA’s rules were based on the assumption that any college football player’s fame came from football, not something else. Once they’d seen—or rather, been forced to see—the light, they latched on to this particular fact like manna from heaven and fell all over themselves to get the waivers in place.
The NCAA was currently facing legislation enacted in several states to allow student-athletes to control their rights. The laws would enable the student-athletes to make money through advertising, appearances, and the like. It might also mean that they would get paid for stuff like jersey sales and other items that universities currently controlled. If the market truly opened, the NCAA’s member institutions could take massive financial hits.
“But I’d understood that he was approached about doing the new Star Wars movie. What’s going on with that?” Cassie asked.
Lexi bit her tongue because Cassie had been on the cusp of uncovering what had happened behind the scenes at big-time football schools. Instead, she was back to more familiar topics.
David’s agent, Ari Gould, had pushed for David to skip college and act full time. David had actually won the role of young Han Solo but turned it down because it would have meant he would have had to leave high school to film it.
Ari hadn’t been happy when that decision was made. But then the Star Wars movie had tanked relatively badly in comparison to all the other films in the franchise. And David then won his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Royal Palm. That was followed shortly by his filming the James Bond and Star Academy movies.
Ari had gone behind David’s back to see if they were interested in his client doing another project. David had been furious and fired Ari. Frank, his publicist, suspected that Ari leaked the information as a parting FU.
“David’s made it clear that he wants to focus on his family and school for now. After college, he’ll see if there is still interest in him doing more movies. Then again, he might just play football or baseball,” Lexi explained.
“You can let him know that we’ll miss him on the big screen, and he needs to hurry up and get back to acting,” Cassie said.
“I’ll let him know, but remember, you won’t be missing him for long,” Lexi assured her. “The three movies are due out this year. Starting with Devil May Care this Memorial Day, followed by the second Star Academy around the fourth of July. The final Star Academy in the trilogy will be out around Christmastime.”
“What about you? Will you still be David’s personal assistant while he is in college?”
Lexi wondered that herself because everything had been perfect while filming. She’d made herself indispensable to him. Lexi organized and catered to his every need so he could focus on his craft. He’d said many times that she was the best PA he’d ever had.
Looking back, Lexi had to admit to herself that hooking up probably hadn’t been the best decision. Lexi had found herself in David’s bed most nights. In her fantasy world, that would have continued, but he’d made it clear from the start that it didn’t mean anything.
She’d made the mistake of announcing that she loved him during a particularly nice orgasm a week ago. After that, David had pulled back.
He’d claimed that since they were wrapping up the shoot that she probably should head back to LA. She’d found herself on a flight home the next day.
Kent, her boss, had been happy to have her back. He wanted to dump their problem child, Gwen Larkin, back in her lap. Gwen was mentally unstable, but was currently a key figure in a highly rated TV series. One of the benefits of going with David overseas was that she was able to fob the nutjob off to one of her colleagues. Gwen would require almost 24/7 babysitting to keep her from doing crazy stuff that would get her in the gossip rags.
So far, Lexi had fended Kent off by saying she needed time off for a short vacation.
“I’m back in LA. I’m sure I’ll still help David out as needed, but I’ll have other clients to keep me busy.”
The alternative Kent had given her was time off to go to college to get her degree. The company did more than PA work; they also helped celebrities manage all aspects of their lives. To do that effectively, having a college degree would help.
Lexi’s long-term plan was to get into management at a studio, so she was leaning towards going to school. If nothing else, it would make her parents happy.
“Thank you for stopping by today and giving us the scoop on what David A. Dawson is up to. Maybe you could talk him into stopping by when he gets back into town,” Cassie said.
‘I doubt he’ll show up,’ Lexi thought but plastered a smile on her face.
“I’ll let him know.”
Cassie seemed happy, so Lexi was able to make her escape. David was going to owe her for this one.
◊◊◊
Chapter 1
David
Tim, Wolf, and David were fifteen hours into their sixteen-hour flight from New Zealand to Norman, Oklahoma, home to the University of Oklahoma. That was where they planned to go to school and play football.
“Could you imagine if we’d tried to do this via a commercial flight?” Tim asked.
“My luck, I would’ve had some little kid either screaming or kicking my seat the whole way,” Wolf replied.
Their original flight to New Zealand had been a nightmare. Tim and Wolf had flown out in June, nearly three months before David arrived, to help set up and start filming the last two films in the Star Academy trilogy. David had been in Europe shooting the latest James Bond offering. Without David along, they’d had to fly commercial. For the flight home, the studio had sprung for a private jet.
“I don’t think they allow rug-rats in first class,” David said with a little smirk.
“Whatever,” Wolf said, not taking the bait.
He’d gotten his two best friends’ jobs in his movie. The financial windfall was enough for both Tim and Wolf to decide to gray-shirt and enroll for the spring semester instead of the fall. They’d had a lot more free time than David had had and were able to enjoy traveling all over Australia and New Zealand.
The copilot emerged from the cockpit.
“The tower in Norman wanted to let you know that Coach Michaels will be there to meet you. I let them know we’re still on schedule.”
“What time is it here?” Tim asked.
The copilot looked at his watch.
“It’s nineteen hours behind … that would make it two-thirty local time,” he said and then went back up front.
“We didn’t rate the head coach when we came for our recruiting trip. Why do you think he’s meeting us today?” Wolf asked.
David had caught that, too. One possibility was that their Heisman-winning quarterback, Hayden Walsh, had announced his plans to go pro. The coach might be greeting them to jumpstart David on his quest to lead the Sooners as next year’s quarterback. David had been rated the number one recruit his senior year and had decided on Oklahoma specifically to win national championships.
But in the back of his mind, he didn’t think the head coach would be there when one of his staff could have done the job. Oh, well, he would find out soon enough.
“Before we left, I got confirmation we got a triple in Headington Hall,” Tim said.
“I got that too. Did you get yours?” Wolf asked David.
David shrugged.
“I’m not sure. Lexi handled that stuff.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but why did she go home a week early?” Tim asked.
Lexi was his PA and acted as his gatekeeper, sometimes to his detriment. She’d pissed off his friends more than once when she’d stopped them from ‘bothering’ him. Tim and Wolf had admitted to each other, though, that with the compressed filming schedule, David had been run ragged. He was lucky if he got five hours of sleep on any given evening.
It wasn’t that David was afraid to work hard. He’d put in more hours than anyone he knew during high school to become an elite quarterback and baseball player. He was almost invariably up at the crack of dawn, hitting the pavement running when most everyone else was snug in their bed.
But the past half year had been nonstop. If it hadn’t been for Lexi taking care of him, David didn’t know how he would have survived. She made sure he was where he needed to be when he needed to be there, and she’d been tasked by David and others, including the director, with keeping all distractions away from him. That sometimes meant that his friends and family were stopped in their efforts to get ahold of him.
He grinned when he thought about the time Lexi had learned that her gatekeeper duties didn’t apply to his mom. All his friends loved his mom but knew that you never crossed her. In David’s junior year, she’d actually dragged his former best friend, Alan, out of the stands by his ear when he’d defied her.
It hadn’t taken long for everyone to figure out that if they really had to talk to David, to have his mom call. Lexi had even interrupted filming one day when she called. That was saying a lot when she was more afraid of David’s mom than of Chubby Feldman, the legendary action director who’d filmed the James Bond movie. When he started to object, Lexi simply told him it was David’s mom. They were lucky Chubby found it amusing.
“We were almost done, and she’d done such a good job I decided to reward her and let her go home early,” David explained.
Tim and Wolf looked at each other.
“I call bullshit,” Wolf said.
“He’s right. It was more than that because you were lost without her to boss you around,” Tim agreed.
“She said she loved me,” David confessed.
They both looked as confused as he’d felt for the last week. If he’d known that might happen, he would never have gone along with Lexi’s scheme to hook up. Lexi had made a convincing argument. Instead of following the typical Hollywood routine where two actors become romantically linked, she would help fill his sexual needs.
Lexi had sold it as a way to prevent any friction on the set if things went south. She’d reminded David of what happened in the romantic comedy he’d been in, Love Letters. The two leads, Halle James and Ben Cowley, had gotten interested in each other. Halle was one of David’s best friends, and he’d warned her that Ben was also dating Isabel Alexandra, the smoking-hot actress of Baywatch fame. It turned out that he was right, and that Ben never intended to leave Isabel. The results were not good when Halle had finally realized it wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had.
There were many other instances where a relationship had caused problems, so he’d relented. It didn’t hurt that Lexi was David’s type: athletic with model-quality looks. He also knew that sex with her was more than satisfactory, and that was selling it short. Between the sheets, they clicked.
The final reason he’d accepted was that Lexi and he had a history. When they first met, David was convinced she was the typical ‘mean girl.’ He’d had numerous people who’d met her warn him to be careful. Even when David first hired Lexi, he’d been cautious.
Then she made it her mission to prove him wrong. They’d had a few rough patches, but all in all, she’d done an excellent job as his PA. He’d come to think of Lexi as an integral part of his team. Sort of his Girl Friday, who just happened to be there for him in more ways than was probably appropriate.
When Lexi said she loved him after the last time they’d made love … David had panicked. He was of two minds. David had a girlfriend explain to him once that if you said you loved someone within 24 hours of sex, it didn’t count. A good orgasm wasn’t much of a foundation for love, so it was possible she didn’t mean it.
There was another possibility, though, which was why he’d sent her home: she really might mean it. The honest-to-God truth was he’d never made that leap of logic to even entertain that possibility. He’d instantly realized that if two people worked together as closely as they had, day in and day out, for seven months, feelings could develop.
What made him even more skittish around Lexi was yet a third possibility, something his Uncle John had explained to him. It concerned what was called ‘grooming.’ It was a process that happened in stages to tie someone to someone else. In its most insidious form, it was used by predators to lure underage children.
The stages include: targeting the victim, then building trust; filling a need or finding something missing in the target’s life and providing it; creating a ‘special’ relationship; introducing sex; and finally, reinforcing the connection. The same steps could be applied to dating, but the difference was the intent.
David could see that Lexi had accomplished each of those steps. If so many people hadn’t warned him about her, he would have probably never doubted her actions. In the back of his mind, though, he knew Lexi was smart enough to con him. David had already seen her fake-cry on demand to get her way.
If it had been anyone else, and he’d have taken the declaration at face value. In the light of day, he’d connected the dots that they were about to wrap up filming, Lexi was going back to LA, and he would be going to college. Was her announcement of love a way to bind them closer together?
David had almost instantly decided that if he had those kinds of doubts, then he didn’t want her as a distraction on set. He still had work to do, and with her there, he would have been focused on trying to figure out if she really meant it or not, rather than on making a quality film.
The big question now was … what if she did? What if she really loved him?
“That is an epic bad idea,” Tim said.
“Almost as bad as when you thought you could sleep with an entire women’s volleyball team,” Wolf reminded Tim.
That brought David out of his Lexi funk. A volleyball team had stayed at one of the hotels the guys had been at. The first night, Tim had gotten lucky and brought one home. His lucky streak had lasted three nights, with a different girl each night. There was a lot of alcohol involved, and sound judgment had gone out the window.
On the fourth night, each of the three girls figured out about the other two. Wolf had sent David a video of them going at each other in a pub. Tim made his next big mistake when he decided he should be the peacemaker.
The three girls’ focus had turned from each other to Tim. He’d ended up with a pitcher of beer on his head, several lumps, and a cut over his eye. Then the girls had thoroughly and loudly listed his shortcomings as a man for all to hear.
Back at the room, after Wolf and David had done what they could for Tim’s bruises and abrasions, the guys had time to reflect on what happened. The three of them had concluded that if something like that ever occurred again, it was better to just leave.
“Why do you think I sent Lexi home? I don’t have time for girls right now.”
“Says the man who has a hot stripper waiting for him when he gets to school,” Tim rejoined.
David sometimes wondered why he had friends. On their recruiting trip to Oklahoma, the university’s then-current starting quarterback, Hayden, had been their guide, and he’d taken the three boys to a gentlemen’s club. They’d witnessed a work of art named Tawny Greenwalt, aka Mercedes.
After the club, the group had gone to a party at Hayden’s apartment, and David had learned that the goddess lived upstairs from Hayden. Tawny and David had bailed on the party and had gone to her place to talk. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend some quality time with her, it was more that he’d found a friend. His best relationships had started that way. If something happened between them, he didn’t want it to be just a one-night stand.
“I haven’t really talked to her since that night,” David explained.
“But you’ll be looking her up,” Tim said.
“Yeah, I might,” David admitted.
“That’s my boy. Get Lexi out of your head. If she got her claws in you, we would never see you again,” Wolf predicted.
Lexi had said on more than one occasion that the two of them were terrible influences on David. He could see her putting her foot down if he came home with glitter on his face from some stripper’s boobs. It would, of course, be all their fault if that happened.
“So, are we set on the plan for today?” David asked to get them off of their Lexi rant.
“We might want to get Lexi back just to organize him,” Wolf teased.
David flipped him off.
“Sign our financial aid docs, get our class schedules, and then we go to our dorm room and see what it needs,” Tim listed off.
“I already know that we need a giant big-screen TV,” Wolf said to make his priorities clear early.
Tim and David rolled their eyes because he’d been politicking for that for the last several weeks. They’d both come up with reasons why they didn’t want one. Of course, they were just pulling his leg.
“We’ll have to see if there is room for one,” David said.
“I’m not sure we need the distraction,” Tim added.
Wolf gave them a determined look and let it go.
“Do we really have to have cameras in our unit?” Wolf asked.
“It’s either that or my mom will insist that a security guy sleeps on the couch. Plus, there won’t be any in your bedrooms. Only I have to carry that burden,” David said.
The downside of fame and money was that a person having both had to protect themselves. On more than one occasion, David had been happy that there was always a camera on him, be it a bodycam or cameras where he lived. It helped eliminate that whole he said/she said situation. More than one celebrity had been shaken down that way. The easiest method was to say that sex was nonconsensual after the fact. Nine times out of ten, people believed the accuser.
Wolf snorted.
“Like you would hesitate to make a sex tape.”
From being a model, David was not body-shy, and his friends knew it.
“The problem is that my security team won’t let me have access to them,” David shot back.
Over the speakers, the captain told them that they were preparing to land and to put on their seatbelts.
“I’m so ready for this,” Wolf said.
“Today begins our drive for a national championship,” David said.
“Hell, yeah,” Tim agreed.
A new chapter in his life was about to begin. David relaxed in his seat as he thought of what was to come. His hope was that he could just be an average college student-athlete. He would prefer to let the whole David A. Dawson actor persona fade into the background while he went to school.
He still had some movie commitments, like voice work and then the publicity tours, but he’d been promised that would be kept to a minimum.
What he really needed was to be treated like any other guy and maybe sleep for a month.
◊◊◊
Chapter 2
Coach Michaels
Oklahoma’s head football coach, Bob Michaels, had been summoned to the athletic director’s office. While it wasn’t unusual for him to meet with Dr. Wilken, they’d just met two days ago to talk about their upcoming bowl game. The athletic department was in charge of the logistics, and he’d wanted to make sure everything was on track.
In the past, he’d been confident that everything was being handled. But Dr. Wilken had suddenly been thrust into the job as the interim athletic director. His old boss, Tug Candis, had unexpectedly retired due to health issues.
Tug had been in charge for the past seventeen years. He knew all the ins and outs of running a smooth operation. In contrast, the best characterization that Coach Michaels could come up with was that Dr. Wilken was ‘muddling through.’. Coach Michaels didn’t think anyone in the department would be happier than him when they found Tug’s replacement.
“Hey, Becky. I’ve been summoned,” he said as greeting to Tug’s long-time assistant.
Truth be known, she was probably more responsible for the success of Oklahoma’s athletics than anyone else. Coach Michaels knew that if you really needed something done, you went to her.
“Bob,” she said, which brought him up short. Becky had never used his first name before. “I tried to stop it, but they’ve made up their minds. Don’t lose your job over what he’s going to tell you.”
As she was saying that, she’d pushed him out into the hall so her boss couldn’t overhear them.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“The new compliance guy we hired from the NCAA rejected the waiver we were granting David Dawson.”
“Son of a B… We had that worked out,” he said, stunned.
“Go make your case, but I’m telling you he has made up his mind. Dr. Wilken is worried he’ll look weak if he grants it,” Becky shared.
“Why couldn’t Tug have waited to retire?” Coach Michaels complained. “This will cost us, mark my words.”
She simply nodded and went back into her office, where she announced him. Bob put on a neutral look and walked in. He saw that Dr. Wilken was with a young man in his mid-20s.
“Bob! Thanks for making time for me today,” Dr. Wilken said, a little too excited.
“We need to make this quick. I’m meeting with Darren Ludlow for lunch today to talk about signing David Dawson, Tim Foresee, and Wolf Tams to financial aid agreements. He’s doing a piece to welcome them to Sooner Nation. He plans to write a big spread for Sunday’s paper. It’s not every day that we pull the number one recruit. The timing couldn’t be better, with Hayden planning to go pro.”
Dr. Wilken visibly flinched. Coach Michaels really didn’t have a lunch meeting with the local paper’s lead sports reporter, but he soon would if this meeting went south.
“Bob, I’d like you to meet Stewart Chadwick from the compliance department. He has something to share with you.”
A glimmer of hope cracked through when he saw Dr. Wilken toss the grenade to the source of all this nonsense.
“It concerns David Dawson. We’re not going to be able to provide him a waiver for his image rights. The long-term implications are too grave to allow it,” Stewart announced.
Both men braced themselves for the coming explosion, which would have happened if Becky hadn’t warned him. Instead, Coach Michaels put on a confused face before trying to reason with the two … well … idiots.
“Tug Candis already agreed to it and signed a letter of understanding to that effect. David will probably take in more money from his movies than all of us together make in a year. Part of that pay requires him to help with promotions when the films are released. At the time he verbaled, he made it clear that giving up those rights was a deal-breaker.
“What I need to know is, what changed? What is making us go back on our word?” Coach Michaels asked.
“Nothing changed. It has been our policy all along that all student-athletes sign a blanket document granting us the use of their likeness. Without it, we couldn’t function,” Dr. Wilken explained.
“Even the NCAA provided him with a waiver because what he needs it for is something he’s created on his own before he steps on campus. This isn’t going to change how we do business. A little common sense would dictate that we would work with the young man on this. Unless we all missed something before, I would strongly recommend we stick with what we promised,” Coach Michaels said.
“We have several concerns. A good example is our upcoming bowl game. We, as a university, had to grant them image rights for all our football players, coaches, and anyone affiliated with the program to allow them to both promote and televise the game. If we give up those rights to David, he could potentially refuse to grant the bowl committee the use of his likeness for the promotion of the game. That could be a huge problem for us,” Mr. Chadwick said.
“Did you even read the letter? He is granting us the rights to his image for football and baseball activities,” Coach Michaels countered.
“There is a clause that says that for marketing purposes, David has veto power,” Mr. Chadwick added.
“That was explained at the time. David has a public image beyond football. One, I might add, he pays a PR firm to manage. What he’s protecting himself from is some marketing guy deciding he’s the bad boy of football, or being asked to make excessive appearances. It’s intended to limit us from turning him into some kind of show pony as the face of the program. He is serious about getting an education and doesn’t want his athletics to affect that,” Coach Michaels reasoned.
At the time, Coach Michaels had wondered why David would be worried. Then the whole Heisman hype had hit for Hayden Walsh. He’d had to step in to limit all the press requests for Hayden so he could focus on football. The marketing arm of the athletic department had naturally wanted the exposure that winning a Heisman by one of Oklahoma’s players would give the university.
“The decision has been made. I suggest you get David to sign it,” Dr. Wilken ordered to show that he wasn’t backing down.
Coach Michaels could have taken this to the Board of Regents or the university president if he’d had time. He suspected that Dr. Wilken had deliberately waited until this morning to spring this on him. David and his friends would be here in a couple of hours to sign their financial aid packets that would give them scholarships. Part of that paperwork was the one granting the university the almost exclusive right to use their likeness.
He could try to sell David on the idea that he could make this right after that fact, but once he signed it, there were no guarantees. Coach Michaels couldn’t, in good conscience, do that to the young man. If he couldn’t get this worked out, he would advise David to not accept a scholarship.
“He’ll walk, and I predict the other two will as well,” Coach Michaels said. “Wolf Tams is one of the better tight end prospects and one that I planned to use next year. Tim Foresee is a bit of a project, but he could start his junior and senior years for us. Those were three key recruits I was counting on to fill out this class.”
Coach Michaels had another thought.
“And you two need to remember something: none of these three has signed a National Letter of Intent. Without those in hand, they can walk and enroll at another school without any consequence to them. They won’t have to sit out any time at all.”
Coach Michaels could tell from Dr. Wilken’s stunned expression that the idiot had thought they were locked in. If they’d signed the National Letters of Intent and decided to transfer, they would have to sit out another year before playing ball at their new school. Glancing over at Mr. Chadwick, though, Coach Michaels could see he was trying mightily to hide a smirk.
“That’s not really a problem. All you have to do is have them sign their enrollment and scholarship papers before you tell them,” Chadwick said, showing that the man had no morals.
Coach Michaels had to fight hard to master the upwelling rage that now threatened to consume him.
“I doubt David will leave,” Dr. Wilken said doubtfully, but then he firmed up, obviously reciting a prepared litany. “We are the University of Oklahoma and just produced the latest Heisman winner. He picked us because he knows that we are his best shot at both winning a national championship and landing in the first round of the NFL draft.”
Coach Michaels shook his head in disgust. This idiot was making a colossal mistake. Heaven help them if they ever met David across the field of play.
“David can make one phone call, and every top program in the country will roll out the red carpet for him. We’ve never had a quarterback with his raw talent step on this campus, and I include Hayden in that statement. I have him penciled in as next year’s starter, and everyone knows that I hate to play freshman quarterbacks. He is the exception to that rule,” Coach Michaels tried one last time.
“Like I said. The decision has been made.”
“That’s fine and dandy,” Coach Michaels said, and then turned his gaze unblinkingly on Mr. Chadwick. “However, if you think for one second I am going to be the front man for your little scheme to defraud these young men by getting them to sign binding documents without telling them about what it means to David, you’re dead wrong.”
He thought for a second and continued.
“Like you said, we’re the University of Oklahoma, and we do things the right way. I’ll meet with them and try to salvage this, but I don’t hold out much hope.”
Coach Michaels made a mental note that as soon as Dr. Wilken was gone, he would make it his life’s mission to get Stewart Chadwick drummed out of the university.
◊◊◊
He went back to his office, where he found his brother, Tom, who was his defensive coordinator, waiting for him.
“You will not believe what Dr. Wilken did this time,” he said without preamble.
“I have a healthy imagination. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“He just jerked the waiver David Dawson needed so he could promote his movies.”
“I thought we agreed to that already, and him coming was a done deal.”
“It was, but some jerk in the compliance department got into Dr. Wilken’s ear. The long and the short of it is we just lost our starting quarterback for next year,” Coach Michaels said.
“And we turned away the kid from Texas. Do you think he’ll still be open to us?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know. Tell Charlie to get in touch with him soonest. We need to come up with a way to not make this worse than it already is. David will never sign, but Wolf Tams and Tim Foresee are both with him, and they plan to sign today.”
“Have them come here first, and we separate them from David when we tell him,” Tom suggested.
“It’s bad enough that we’re going back on our word to David, but you don’t know what else that weaselly little compliance prick tried to get me to do. He actually wanted me to wait until after they’d signed their enrollment documents before letting any of them know, including David.
“I have to be able to look at my face in a mirror, to begin with. We aren’t some desperate program that has to stoop to underhanded tactics. I won’t try to deceive any of them,” Coach Michaels said.
Tom looked embarrassed by his initial comment.
“You need to go to them. Making them come to the football offices sends the wrong message.”
What he loved about his brother was that he might want to go a bit too far, but when he had a moment to think about it, his moral compass was just fine.
“He’s flying in on a corporate jet over at the university’s field. I’ll have them contact them and let the guys know to be looking for me. Doing this there lets them know I’m taking this seriously.”
“Do you want me there?” Tom asked.
“No. I don’t want them to feel like we’re ganging up on them.”
“I’ll give Charlie a call. I think he’s in Dallas, seeing that receiver we want. After he’s done with that, I’ll send him to Houston,” Tom assured his brother.
“Tell him to do what it takes. We may have to start Jordan Murphy, but we need him after that. We’ll have to save a scholarship for a transfer to back up Jordan,” Coach Michaels planned.
He could see the domino effect that losing David was going to cause. If he’d come, he would have had both spring ball, all summer, and then preseason practice to get ready. The kid from Houston wouldn’t get here until summer school started. They would lose five months of his learning the offense.
Jordan would be a junior. The party line would be an open competition at quarterback, but Coach Michaels knew that unless David fell on his face, Jordan would not win the job. He would then turn into the security blanket in case the pressure got to David, or he was injured.
The kid from Houston, while a top prospect, couldn’t be expected to walk in and be the backup at Oklahoma. He might be ready by the last third of the season, but he couldn’t trust him early on.
Coach Michaels mentally prepared to put on his kneepads so he could apologize to David and hopefully keep the other two.
◊◊◊
The University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport was designated a regional business airport servicing general aviation aircraft, including business jets. Coach Michaels had arrived early enough to watch the plane carrying the guys land.
He put on his game face as they made it to the building. The first thing he noticed was that David looked tired. He had dark circles under his eyes as he stretched at the entrance. Wolf and Tim were joking with him, and he saw a little smile touch David’s lips in response to whatever had been said.
“Coach Michaels, you didn’t have to come to pick us up,” David said as he led the group to say hello.
It wasn’t lost on him that David had been the one who’d initiated the conversation.
“I need to talk to all of you before we get to campus. They have a small conference room this way,” Coach Michaels said as he led them. “How was your trip?”
“Much better than the flight out. When you’re with David, you get the perks,” Tim said.
“I’m so ready to get started. Working for the last several months just highlighted how good college kids have it,” Wolf added.
Once they got to the conference room, everyone took a seat.
“What’s wrong?” David asked.
“Our interim athletic director called me to his office this morning and informed me that we are reneging on the waiver we agreed to.”
Tim and Wolf rocked back in their chairs. He was impressed when David didn’t say anything for a minute as he thought through what that meant. David took a deep breath and then looked Coach Michaels in the eyes.
“That’s a real problem. I can’t play football or baseball without it.”
“I was afraid you would say that. Would you consider enrolling to give me time to fix this?” Coach Michaels asked.
“Would I be able to play baseball or football without an agreement in place?” David asked.
“No. Even as a walk-on, we have to have something signed so you can be shown on television. I would have to see if you would be able to practice or not,” Coach Michaels said and then took a deep breath. “I hate what has happened, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have all the answers. This is uncharted territory for me.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I have a real problem with the athletic department breaking their word with me. I’m going to have to find somewhere else to go to school,” David said.
The words were spoken casually, but there was a tightness in David’s face that told Coach Michaels he wasn’t happy. This was going just as badly as he’d feared.
“I don’t blame you in the least. If you need me to make calls on your behalf to explain you were forced into this, let me know.”
“What about my teammates?” David asked.
“I’m not sure I want to stay after that,” Wolf said.
David turned to look at him, the stormy eyes changing to look at his friend with understanding and compassion.
“Before you make a hasty decision, I want you to remember why you picked Oklahoma. It’s one of the places where we felt most at home when we visited campuses. On Saturdays, you’ll be playing ball in front of a sold-out stadium. If I end up somewhere like Northwestern, it’ll be more like playing high school ball.”
Coach Michaels would be forever grateful David had said that. It would’ve been easy for the young man to let his emotions reign and take Wolf and Tim with him wherever he ended up. David had put his friends’ welfare first.
“I want to assure both of you that we didn’t offer you scholarships just because David was coming; you earned them on your own merit. We have plans for both of you,” Coach Michaels added.
“I don’t know, David. The plan was the three of us would play ball together,” Wolf replied sadly.
The conflicting emotions were there on his face for all to see.
“I understand, but we all knew that at some point, one of us could get hurt or transfer, and we’d have to break up the band. It just might be happening a lot sooner than we expected.”
Neither Tim nor Wolf looked happy, so David added to his comment.
“Look. I can’t ask you to give up an opportunity like this. It would be ten times harder to find a spot for the three of us this late in the game. Take the scholarships and play ball here. You both know that’s what you want. If it weren’t, we would never have all three agreed to come here.
“Plus, who knows what the future holds for me? This might be the wake-up call I needed. After what I went through doing the movies, I seriously need a mental break. Taking the first semester off to just be a college student looks pretty damn appealing right now. You both know how much work it is to play ball, go to school, and all the rest,” David said.
“And you planned to play baseball, too. I never could figure out how you were going to do it,” Tim admitted.
“Like I said before, you could do that here,” Coach Michaels said.
The guys laughed. He had to admit, it sounded weak when it came out. He knew that David’s best bet was to go elsewhere.
“Are you guys going to sign?” Coach Michaels asked.
Tim and Wolf looked at each other and then at David. He gave them a little head nod.
“I’m still in,” Tim said.
“Me, too, but I’m not happy about what you did to David,” Wolf agreed.
“I’m not happy either,” Coach Michaels said and then turned to David. “In my wildest dreams, I never thought something like this would happen. All I can say is, best of luck. If circumstances change, I’ll welcome you with open arms.”
“I appreciate that, Coach,” David said and then turned to his friends. “You guys are set with transportation back home?”
“Yeah. Our flights are booked,” Wolf said.
“I think I’ll see if the pilots are up to taking me to California. They’d planned to stay overnight and take me back tomorrow, but I want to get home and see my family,” David said.
Coach Michaels watched with Tim and Wolf as David walked back to the plane.
“Come on, guys. Let’s get you set up. If you’d like, I know my wife is making lasagna tonight. Could I interest you in a home-cooked meal?”
◊◊◊
He dropped Tim and Wolf at the admissions office. While they dealt with that, he called Darren Ludlow.
“I’ve got a story for you. Want to hear how our interim athletic director and our compliance officer lost us our starting quarterback for next year?”
“You’ve got to be shittin’ me,” Darren said.
“Do me a favor. Call the university president and Board of Regents for comment,” Coach Michaels said.
“You looking for some heads to roll?”
“You got it. Those two need to go. Make sure it’s clear that David Dawson is the victim in all this. Tug set it all up for everything to go smoothly for David, and those two blew it up in one morning. Call Becky, and she can get you the dirt,” Coach Michaels said.
“Can I use you as a source?” Darren asked, hopefully.
“Hell, no. You can say you got it from my brother, though,” Coach Michaels said with a laugh.
They had a standing joke that if something negative had to be said, his younger brother was the source. Darren knew Coach Michaels was joking. He also knew that if he’d given him access to Becky, he was dead serious about getting rid of whoever was involved in losing him a recruit.
“I’ll have a bottle of the good stuff sent over.”
“If you get them fired, I might even let you come over and drink it with me,” Coach Michaels said.
◊◊◊